Research on the Changing Workplace

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Research on the Changing Workplace

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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July 31, 2020 at 12:00 am

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Doctor Who 2 SSCrazy Eights Points: 8194 More actions · Answer 1

First all, thank you Steve for searching the link to Microsoft Research. I didn't know it and appreciate your sharing it!

Secondly, the research you also pointed to concerning Microsoft's examining their experience at remote work, is very interesting. This topic is very near and dear to my heart. How does one go about measuring something in their own company? For example, since the pandemic started I've noticed a dramatic increase in the number of video meetings. But its been my experience that no one's interested in ending scheduled meetings sooner than is necessary. However, that's just my anecdotical observations. There's a good chance my experience isn't typical, but I don't know that. How do you go about getting that sort of information?

Rod

GeorgeCopeland SSCertifiable Points: 6997 More actions · Answer 2

Hi Rod, whatever teleconference service you use, it keeps metrics on meeting attendees and duration. Getting access to this data and sucking it into a warehouse is a classic data mining operation. One of the companies I work with pushes an "end with five" time management technique, end meetings five minutes early to give everyone time to organize for their next activity.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736212 More actions · Answer 3

Someone has to be researching this. In MS' case, they are gathering data in this group, who are used to this since their focus is employee interactions. This group works with companies to find out how their employees are engaging.

They also appear to gather some data from their video systems, as I'm guessing they can query Teams for data.

To me, if you want to measure this, you'll have to start tracking some things.

Meeting schedule time
start time
end time
absentees/late/etc.

Put it in an XLS, and then report on it over time.

Tom Uellner SSCrazy Points: 2995 More actions · Answer 4

Steve - thanks for the link to Microsoft Research. I haven't looked at that link in a long time and it's always interesting to see what they're working on.

The meetings I'm involved with at work do seem to end a little (sometimes a lot) early depending on who's on the call. That might have something to do with how understaffed we are and we all just want to get back to work. Fortunately, all our meetings are audio and screen share only. I don't think any of us really want to see the others COVID hair and the t-shirt that we can't bring ourselves to part with but should have tossed several years ago. 🙂

Doctor Who 2 SSCrazy Eights Points: 8194 More actions · Answer 5

GeorgeCopeland wrote:

Hi Rod, whatever teleconference service you use, it keeps metrics on meeting attendees and duration. Getting access to this data and sucking it into a warehouse is a classic data mining operation. One of the companies I work with pushes an "end with five" time management technique, end meetings five minutes early to give everyone time to organize for their next activity.

Thank you very much, George, I wasn't aware of that. I'll see if I can get access to that data.

Rod